618 Manuel Malfeito-Ferreira et al.
to influence cells viability and proliferation, but its modes of toxicity remain “a
continuing enigma” (see review of Ringot et al. 2006).
Given their toxicity, mycotoxins are subjected to regulations determining the
maximum allowable levels. As a rule food products have mycotoxin levels lower
than the limits (Jorgensen 2005) but about 40% of the notifications received in 2005
by an European rapid alert system for food and feed were related to risks to human
health by mycotoxins (van Egmond and Schothorst 2007). These authors further
mentioned that almost 90% of these notifications were related to aflatoxin in nuts
and nut products imported to the EU. Cases related to OTA in wine were not referred
to in this report. In addition, an indirect measure of the toxicity and risk to human
health may be given by the standards of international legislation or guidelines of
advisory boards. Concerning OTA there are no regulations in the USA or in Codex
Alimentarius Commission, in contrast to patulin, fumonisin, aflatoxin and deoxyni-
valenol (DON) (Murphy et al. 2006), and so itseems admissible that these toxins
represent a bigger threat than OTA.
At European Union level the Council Regulation (EEC) 315/93 of 8th February
1993 provided the legal framework for establishing maximum levels for food con-
taminants at Community level. In 1995,the European Commission (EC) initiated
the activity SCOOP (scientific cooperation on questions related to food), which
included a project to provide data on the occurrence of OTA in food commodities
on the European market and on the dietary exposure to OTA in the EU member
states (Jorgensen 2005). As a consequence, many data on the occurrence of OTA
in human food and human blood plasma have become available since 1995. After
the first SCOOP report, known as SCOOP-1 (European Commission 1997) a sec-
ond SCOOP task was performed, extended to other commodities and processed
foods, including wine and other grape products, to evaluate if the additional studies
changed the conclusions of first SCOOP report. Not surprisingly, due to the detec-
tion of OTA in wine, much occurrence data has been produced since then, not only
for wine but also for dried vine fruits (currants, raisins, and sultanas) and grape
juice, particularly after 2000. The most relevant conclusion from those data was
that the overall mean level of OTA in wine was 0.36 g/kg (mean of 1470 samples),
representing the second source, after cereals, to the OTA exposure in the European
diet (European Commission 2002), raising relevant concern and electing OTA as a
threat to the European wine industry. In particular, JECFA (2001) calculated that
the human OTA exposure was of 58%, 21%, 7%, 5% and 3% of total OTA intake
for cereals, wine, grape juice, coffee and pork, respectively (Murphy et al. 2006).
However, the calculation of these figures was based on the controversial assumption
that the mean intake is represented by the arithmetic mean value. If the median
value was used, the value of OTA in red wine would have been only 0.02 g/kg
and the contribution of wine consumption for OTA intake-rate would drop to 2%
(Otteneder and Majerus 2000). The maximum allowable limits for OTA in several
food products have been established recentlyin the EU, being the adult’s strictest
value applied to wine (Table 11.1). In addition, a provisional tolerable weekly intake
(PTWI) of 100–120 ng/kg body weight (bw) is advised (JECFA 2001) that was set
based on a safety factor of 450 related with the renal function deterioration of pigs,